shrinking government until it can go down a bathtub drain

woiyo wrote:

Cycloptichorn wrote:
What proof do you have that they do not?

The high living standards and low crime rate of current socilaistic societies?

Cycloptichorn

Stupid people may think Govt knows whats best for them. However, educated people know what is best for them and their families and do not need or want govt intervention.

I'm from the educated lise.

Which line do you belong to?

We ARE the govt. Even STUPID people should realize that. Lets not give any Federal emergency loans because of Katrina to anyone with a HS education or better.. Do you support that one woiyo? You are claiming no educated people want them or need them.

But that's right.. you are edumacated to know what all other people want and need.

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As someone who benefited from the gov't to earn an education (gov't loans that I repaid), I find it curious that anyone would say that educated don't need the gov't.

Or are the only ones who count as educated the ones whose moms an dads could afford to pay their tuitions?

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Cycloptichorn
[quote="Cycloptichorn"][quote]If I had to define my political philosophy, it would have to be an advocate of Cooperative Principles. [/quote]
<high-fives BBB>
Exactly!
I have often thought that the best way to achieve progress is by not utilizing pure cooperation, or pure competition, but competition AND cooperation.
We HAVE to start embracing cooperation as a business and life model here in the states; or we will really be paying the price down the road....
Cycloptichorn[/quote]

I truly believe in the principles of the Cooperative Movement. I worked my way up by member election from membership in a consumer cooperative store to the Board of Directors of the of a Consumer Cooperative Corporation with 1,200 employees and over 30,000 members, one of the largest consumer cooperatives in the U.S.

In that endeavor, I met some of the finest smart and caring people I've ever met in my life. And most of them were volunteers to donated their time and energy for the Common Good.

BBB

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Re: shrinking government until it can go down a bathtub drai

BumbleBeeBoogie wrote:

"I don't want to abolish government. I simply want to reduce it to the size where I can drag it into the bathroom and drown it in the bathtub" ---Grover Norquist.

Have you thought about all the implications of a government that size, BBB? Are they obviously less attractive than what actually happened?

BumbleBeeBoogie wrote:

The Bush administration political agenda pattern is clear. They are a breed of small government fanatics. Part of this pruning of government is to appoint cabinet secretaries who ideologically want to reduce the size and effectiveness of the agencies/departments they are appointed to manage.

They reduced the effectiveness alright, but they increased the size. FEMA's budget actually exploded under Bush.

BumbleBeeBoogie wrote:

The only exception to Bush's mandate are those agencies/departments that support their agenda. The military (industrial) complex, corporate interests, land control for private profit, etc.

I agree -- they did as dismal a job at shrinking that as they did shrinking FEMA.

BumbleBeeBoogie wrote:

If US citizens don't rise up and put an end to this corrupt and obscene administration, those who continue to support it will deserve what they get. Unfortunately, those of us who don't support it will also be harmed unless we get off our butts and get rid of them.

I hope you are right in your expectation that the likely alternative will be better.

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Thomas
Thomas, you highlighted some of the points I was trying to make. I tend to write in stream of consciousness style that is not as coherent and organized as it should be if I took the time to edit it. But my submit button is faster than my edit button.

What we have with Bush are cabinet secretaries whose reasons for appointment are to undermine the agency or department primarily to dismantle regulatory rules that the corporate world does not want for the purpose of increasing their profits. The hell with the common good for US citizens.

Then we have the staffing of such agencies or departments with political cronies, big financial contributors, and image specialists who don't have a clue about meeting the requirements of management and leadership for functions to which they've been assigned.

We all are paying for this corruption and incompetence, including the Bush supporters who will wake up one day and discover that they, too, have been screwed.

BBB

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There is finally some good news
Former FEMA Director Michael Brown just resigned from FEMA.

Don't let the door hit Frown on his way out.

BBB

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But the croniness issue is quite separate from the small government issue, is it not?

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Thomas

Thomas wrote:

But the croniness issue is quite separate from the small government issue, is it not?

Yes, it just makes it worse.

BBB

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Also if we did not have government taxes how would the poorer communities help the disabled and the handicapped or those for reasons not of their fault temporarily lost their jobs or mothers who either earned less or stayed home who for one or another separated from their husband who would help pay for the needs of those children or what about the elderly poor? Would they then become totally dependence of the iffy charity of their family members or churches?

I honestly do not believe that the majority of Americans want to just stop helping those that need help. Volunteer work from churches and other sources are a good supplement but can in no way handle all the needs of people who need help to survive. Volunteer work does not have the steady infrastructure that government does because it depends on people willing to volunteer and it depends on them making wise decisions on who and for what reason gets help and how much help. If is is private there would be no one to watch to make sure everything is done right. With laws in place and representatives to fight for those needs and laws then we can be sure those that need help get it and if there are problems or abuses there is a mechanism in place to investigate that. Without the so called dreaded bureaucracy in place there is no set avenue to address needs and problems for those that need assistance.

But in the end they might not have a choice if things keep going to the way they are.

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Re: Thomas

BumbleBeeBoogie wrote:

Thomas wrote:
But the croniness issue is quite separate from the small government issue, is it not?

Yes, it just makes it worse.

How so? If you liked your government small and focused on its core functions (courts, police, legislatures, and national defense), wouldn't you still prefer to have it run properly? Aren't corrupt governments more dangerous when big? Conversely, if your government sells out to the president's cronies, wouldn't you prefer that it be small and have little to sell to those cronies? Or, more bluntly put, didn't Katrina make you want to drown George W. Bush in a bathtub?

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Re: Thomas

Thomas wrote:

BumbleBeeBoogie wrote:

Thomas wrote:
But the croniness issue is quite separate from the small government issue, is it not?

Yes, it just makes it worse.

How so? If you liked your government small and focused on its core functions (courts, police, legislatures, and national defense), wouldn't you still prefer to have it run properly? Aren't corrupt governments more dangerous when big? Conversely, if your government sells out to the president's cronies, wouldn't you prefer that it be small and have little to sell to those cronies? Or, more bluntly put, didn't Katrina make you want to drown George W. Bush in a bathtub?

George, I'm sensing that you may have misunderstood my ideal of government. I want the smallest, well managed government possible, staffed from top to bottom with people who really know what they are doing via expertise in their field. Large does not necessarily mean good just as small also does not mean good. What does make the difference is competence, honesty and integrity in devotion to the common good for all US citizens, not just to political party or ideology.

BBB

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Re: Thomas

BumbleBeeBoogie wrote:

I want the smallest, well managed government possible, staffed from top to bottom with people who really know what they are doing via expertise in their field.

I see. Somehow, your thread title did not communicate this to me.

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Re: Thomas

Thomas wrote:

BumbleBeeBoogie wrote:
I want the smallest, well managed government possible, staffed from top to bottom with people who really know what they are doing via expertise in their field.

I see. Somehow, your thread title did not communicate this to me.

My bad.

The purpose of my title was to think about what services they would lose of value if some of the radical small government folks got their way. There is a difference between logical small government and small government based on social and economic Darwinism ideology.

BBB

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If the small government folks had their way, I admit there would be no FEMA to rescue New Orleans after Katrina. But the Mississippi river wouldn't have been drained in ways that make its delta sink into the Gulf of Mexico. And all New Orleans would have been built above sea level. (Note that the old core of the city stayed dry during Katrina. It had been built by people who new the federal government wouldn't bail them out of any flooding that might occur.)

So everything considered, BBB, I think you're giving us small government types a bum rap.

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Thomas

Thomas wrote:

If the small government folks had their way, I admit there would be no FEMA to rescue New Orleans after Katrina. But the Mississippi river wouldn't have been drained in ways that make its delta sink into the Gulf of Mexico. And all New Orleans would have been built above sea level. (Note that the old core of the city stayed dry during Katrina. It had been built by people who new the federal government wouldn't bail them out of any flooding that might occur.)

So everything considered, BBB, I think you're giving us small government types a bum rap.

Thomas, I don't agree. I'm not an expert on the history of New Orleans or Louisiana government. I do know that the bad building plans started centuries ago, mostly design by the small state and city government in control. Louisiana has a well-deserved reputation for have corrupt government at all levels.

If you've read any of my posts on other threads, you know I'm not an advocate of restoring New Orleans as it existed befor the hurricane and flood. We can thank politics, corporate greed, and the Corps of Engineers for the damage to the natural drainage of the Mississippi River basin and wetlands into the Gulf of Mexico. It's criminal what has been done to the vast natural drainage of all areas east of the Rocky Mountains into that basin to benefit corporate greed. I think the port is more important than the city, as cold and uncaring as that might seem. The entire nation relies on that port and it's economic importance cannot be denied.

New Orleans as a social and cultural entity can be recreated in a safer place. It won't be the same, however, as the rambling building codes and charming and mixed economic eclectic neighborhood development will be difficult if not impossible to duplicate because of cost and of what I call the "gated community" syndrome.

Sorry I'm doing a very good job of explaining my views. You obviously are a scholar. Unfortunately, I'm not.

BTW, this article is illustrative of what I posted earlier about incompetent staffing in government agencies and departments.

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/textonly/focus1.html

---BBB

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Cycloptichorn wrote:

Quote:
If I had to define my political philosophy, it would have to be an advocate of Cooperative Principles.

<high-fives BBB>

Exactly!

I have often thought that the best way to achieve progress is by not utilizing pure cooperation, or pure competition, but competition AND cooperation.

We HAVE to start embracing cooperation as a business and life model here in the states; or we will really be paying the price down the road....

Cycloptichorn

That makes sense to me. Command economies don't work but completely unrestrained and unregulated market economies don't work either. Some things are best done by private interests and some things are best done by government.

In Australia we are finding that slavishly following the limited government model and privatising natural monopolies is pretty stupid.

The necessities are best delivered by government which uses our common contributions (tax) to provide them to us at no further cost to us as individuals. The luxuries can be delivered by private concerns for profit and we should be free to choose to purchase them or not.

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I'm listening, you're making sense..

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I know humans can cooperate for minutes at a time. The thing would be to have the push pull cycle so that - dare I go there one more time - there would be something like the Kreb's Cycle in biochemistry. When x amount of one compound is produced, that triggers production of another. I think an operon gene is involved, but those are words from my long ago study. Anyway, a feedback inhibition system, so that Cooperation would bring Rewards, which would accumulate, and then Smaltz and Inertia would trigger Individual Initiative to pop up, and so on, in some kind of multiple at one time cycle... not all or nothing of either.

I don't like to see one or the other stultified.

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Cycloptichorn wrote:

I have often thought that the best way to achieve progress is by not utilizing pure cooperation, or pure competition, but competition AND cooperation.

Sure -- and people cooperate all the time in families, companies, and non-profits. I am all for voluntary cooperation. I am only opposed to coerced cooperation, and I prefer to limit it to those cases where voluntary cooperation is hopelessly inefficient.

goodfielder wrote:

That makes sense to me. Command economies don't work but completely unrestrained and unregulated market economies don't work either. Some things are best done by private interests and some things are best done by government.

I think few people dispute that, but the question is how large governments has to be to do the things best done by them. I would have said that Victorian England worked pretty well. It had a government about a quarter the size of the United States', judging by the fraction of the national income it spent. Hong Kong works pretty well today. It has a government about half the size of America's. Most of us libertarian types have these government sizes in mind when we talk about small government.

goodfielder wrote:

The necessities are best delivered by government which uses our common contributions (tax) to provide them to us at no further cost to us as individuals. The luxuries can be delivered by private concerns for profit and we should be free to choose to purchase them or not.

Two points come to mind immediately: 1) Taxes are a cost to us as individuals. There is no way of providing something to someone without someone paying for it as an individual. 2) Food, shelter, and clothing are all necessities. Are you saying that agriculture, housing, and the textile industry ought to be run by the government?

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ossobuco wrote:

I know humans can cooperate for minutes at a time. The thing would be to have the push pull cycle so that - dare I go there one more time - there would be something like the Kreb's Cycle in biochemistry.

Sure -- and we do have such a cycle. If you look at the first pages of most economics textbooks, you will find some version of an economic model called the "circular flow of income and expenditure". It looks similar to Kreb's cycle, and it, too, is a control loop featuring negative feedback.

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shrinking government until it can go down a bathtub drain

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